from the really-now? dept

We've discussed for many years how the Olympics has a ridiculously overaggressive approach to attacking free speech for those who criticize or mention aspects of the Olympics without permission. In most locations that host the Olympics, special extraordinary laws get passed against specific expressions around the Olympics that go beyond ordinary restrictions on speech. London, it seems, has been particularly willing to bend over backwards to appease the International Olympic Committee.

Take, for example, this story of a simple parody video about the 2012 Olympics that has been taken down over claims it violates the Olympics' IP rights. The video is clearly a parody, making use of the 2012 Olympics' creepy mascots, Wenlock and Mandeville, to show them in what appears to be a London riot (using some computer graphics work). The original video got about 90,000 views before being taken down. As the link above notes, there is no right to parody in the UK, so while it may be legal to have the video taken down, it's still ridiculous. The site linked above, LiberalConspiracy.org, insists that it'll keep posting the video if it gets taken down. But, as of the time I write this, I'm embedding the working version of the video, though I wouldn't be surprised if it's gone before too long.

Honestly, the video seems pretty tame. Perhaps the Olympics thinks it hurts its "brand" to have such a video, but it sure seems like censoring parody videos does a hell of a lot more reputation damage to the Olympics than a silly parody video of its mascots.

from the clock-ran-out dept

So this was a bit of a surprise. Lots of people expected Lamar Smith to keep the SOPA markup process going until he could get a vote out, even if it was late tonight. But it looks like he ran out of time. With Congress settling it's other business and closing up shop, Smith abruptly ended the markup, saying they'll resume at the next available date -- which likely won't be until late January. They only had time to go through two amendments, the second of which was withdrawn. That was from Rep. Chaffetz who asked that the DNS/IP blocking sections not be put into effect until after a thorough analysis was done by experts on their impact on online security. Somewhat surprisingly, Smith seemed willing to agree to something like this. He came close to suggesting that perhaps they should, in fact, have hearings with some of these experts concerned about the internet blocking part of SOPA (perhaps because he realized that SOPA wouldn't get voted on today). Of course, now we'll have to see what actually happens.

In the meantime, this represents a very brief, but significant, victory for those in favor of internet freedom and against internet censorship in the US. Have no fear, however, that Hollywood and the US Chamber of Commerce will be pushing very, very, very hard to get SOPA approved as soon as possible. This fight isn't over by a long shot, but there does appear to be a brief and thankful reprieve. The momentum is also on the side of those opposed. When PROTECT IP came out early this year, it was seen as a slam dunk. Congress would bend over backwards to grant Hollywood its wishes. The fact that it's getting pushed into the new year is big, big news. On top of that, people have really jumped up on this one. The grassroots efforts have been amazing -- as an issue that normally gets little attention (copyright) has become a very mainstream issue in a matter of months. We keep hearing about SOPA from random and surprising places. This needs to keep up and Congress needs to learn that giving in to Hollywood's short-sighted whims isn't going to go over well with the public.

Update.... Or not. Despite the fact that Congress was supposed to be out of session until the end of January, the Judiciary Committee has just announced plans to come back to continue the markup this coming Wednesday. This is rather unusual and totally unnecessary. But it shows just how desperate Hollywood is to pass this bill as quickly as possible, before the momentum of opposition builds up even further.

from the you-can't-make-this-stuff-up dept

Sometimes you come across stories that are more bizarre than you could possibly imagine. The Hollywood Reporter points us to the news that the Catholic Church of Brazil is suing Columbia Pictures, claiming copyright infringement in last year's blockbuster 2012, because the movie depicts a famous statue of Jesus being destroyed. Brazil allows copyright on sculptures for life, plus seventy years, and the guy who made the statue (now a huge tourist attraction in Rio) died in 1961, meaning that the statue is still under copyright -- and the archdiocese claims to hold the copyright. It apparently turned down Columbia Pictures request to use it in the movie 2012 because the people there didn't like the idea of seeing the statue destroyed.

Columbia Pictures still showed the statue getting destroyed -- and claims that it did get the proper permission... but from the estate of the sculptor, rather than the church. Apparently, everyone's negotiating this out, and the Church says it wants the movie studio to admit it "meant no offense." Of course, I'm sure the studio meant no offense, but it does make you wonder, yet again, why copyright law should prevent a statue from being shown in a movie. Not that Hollywood tends to be a big fan of fair use, but you would think that it would have a pretty strong claim to the idea that, even if the statue is covered by copyright, this particular use was not infringing.

from the IP-gone-mad dept

The Olympics are notorious for getting local governments to grant them extra special intellectual property rights that go so far beyond what's reasonable (and local existing laws) that it's become something of a pure mockery of the concept of intellectual property. Remember how non-sponsored brands found in and around the Olympics in Beijing were covered by tape? Well, that may be nothing compared to what's going to happen in London. Two years ago, we noted that the Olympics had convinced UK officials to create a special trademark law, just for the Olympics that gave special protections to a variety of terms relating to the Olympics, including 2012, games, gold, silver and bronze. Yes, if you were to say "reach for the gold in 2012" as part of any advertisement and you weren't an approved Olympic sponsor, you'd be breaking the law in the UK.

Even though this all happened two years ago, it appears that a variety of companies are waking up to how ridiculous this is. A marketing body in the UK has now released a report detailing how draconian the law is for marketers. The one thing that's still never been explained is why governments would grant these rights -- which go well beyond traditional trademark rights -- to the Olympics, which isn't exactly hurting for sponsors. What's wrong with applying traditional trademark law to the Olympics as well?